Two Rules for blissfulness

Let’s see how our body works. When we see with our eyes, eyes as an instrument will capture the images, in a similar way as a digital camera capture the images. However our eye as a biological camera is far superior, more efficient, less maintenance and long life camera. These nerve signals or biological signals get transmitted via our indriyas or communication channels to a particular part of the brain, we can call it as nerve center. There the image gets imprinted for quick milli-second, immediately our buddhi or decision-making faculty of the brain get invoked to apply some sense or meaning to those images based on its storage or historical data.  

Now in above process, if any of the mechanism is not working, then the process is not complete and the image does not make any sense. If the eye is open, but the signal transmitted is not passed or connected to brain nerve center, then seeing does not make any sense. Remember incidence when we are seeing something blankly, our eyes are capturing and transmitting images, but the other part of the brain is active, the part which deals with image processing is not active hence the image or scene does not make any sense. Or if we see some new image which we had not seen previously or our knowledge or information cannot correlate or put the image into perspective, then we get confused or we ignore the image or get lost. But if the image is familiar, our buddhi correlate it with our past experiences or historical data and based on our attachments, our self-identification it gets decided how we interpret that image, either pleasantly, unpleasantly, neutral or ignore it. If our attachment or ahmankara is closely related with the image, based on this, immediately manas (feeling or emotions) come into the picture to form feeling and emotions which drives our physical action mostly unconsciously, without our awareness that why we acted the way we acted. However, if we are not attached or associated with some concepts, ideas, person, places and remain objective, our buddhi will decide the appropriate action which will be a conscious action or consciously it can decide to ignore the image. Similar processing happens with any sense organs including ear, skin, tongue, and nose. And based on our attachments or associations and its threads formed in Ahmankara or Ego, manas (feeling and thoughts) play its game driving our actions and reactions. If we want to come out of the trap of actions and reactions and want to respond, cut down the attachments and associations so that we can able to use buddhi to take our decision consciously and act wisely.

Consider our mind or chitta as lake and our real self as the bottom of the lake. The real self could be our God, our soul, some universal power which drives human body and nature. For simplicity, I will refer it to soul. So, I will be able to see my soul continuously only if the lake of chitta or mind is clean, not muddy or dirty water and also its still/stable and there is no waves playing in it. These waves of chitta we can call as vritti or whirlpool of our internal state. And why do we want to see the soul in this lake of mind or chitta? Because that’s our real nature, as a human being, we are not our body, emotions and so on, we are something more than that, and we are calling that as a soul for simplicity. And it has tremendous power, infinite bliss, unlimited pleasantness and never-ending peace. So to be in touch with that powerful soul, we need to keep this lake clean and clear from our politics, revenge like attitude, practice non-attachment and disassociation and keep on walking on the straight path. And when the waves of emotion, hatred, anger, attachment, lust, greediness and so on emerge in this lake obstructing our view of the soul, we need to watch these waves and consciously subdued them with our willpower. So observation is the key here, to ensure that we should not make the chitta or mind-lake water dirty and watch those waves emerging in the lake. So keep on watching ones chitta or mind, always, 24 hours a day if possible.

So the mantra for happiness as explained above is

·        To keep your ahmankara or ego in control by cutting your attachments and associations. This will help you subdued your emotion, anger, feeling, excitement and so on to let buddhi take the conscious and wise decision.

·        Keep watching the lake of your chitta/mind to keep the water clean and pure and subdued the waves emerging from it due to ahmankara or ego.

So, there are only two simple rules to remain ever happy. Cut your attachments and keep watching your chitta or mind. And both these concepts need sustained practice, that too for a long time. However, it’s journey worth traveling.

May God bless!

Mind/Chitta and it's major four components

Let’s try to understand our Mind or in the Sanskrit language it’s called Chitta. Mind or Chitta have four major constituent parts or we can say it encompasses four main areas, they are Organs, Ahmankara (Ego), Manas (our emotional aspect) and Buddi (decision-making mechanism)

·        Organs: In our body, we have many organs, eye, liver, heart, kidneys, blood, cells etc. Our mind or chitta will not be stable or calm if any one of these organs is not functioning as per their role. For this purpose, regular exercise, yoga, healthy diet, sleep and basic hygienic practices are essential.

·        Ahmankara or Ego: This comes from our attachment to things, object, concepts, and ideas. For example, it’s my family, it’s my car, that project is mine, my job, my cabin in office and so on. In our daily life, there are loads and loads of such attachment we had created. These attachments are not problems in present, at this moment, it’s problem when we extrapolate them on past or in future. We inter-mix them to our future desire or past guilt’s and they started affecting our mind or chitta. So attachment in past or future is a problem and will disturb one’s mind, attachment in present is good and will help you to do ones current tasks efficiently in present.

·        Manas or feelings, emotions: Attachment in past or future creates feelings. Say I am closely attached to my car, if someone says good about it, I am feeling happy or otherwise. So one's attachment to the car could bring strong feelings which will drive one's action and behavior. However, if you use your car in present to go from home to office, or for an outing, and ensure that it’s safe, locked, cleaned and that’s it. Now if anyone talks good or bad about the car, its ok, it’s doing her job and you are fine with it. So no attachment in spite of taking all the steps required to take care of it.

·        Buddi or decision making capability: This makes the decision to act or not, what or how to act, what to do, it also drives your physical body so that one can take action. And it does not know which input factors to use to take the decision, it can use ones feeling or ahmankara or organs input to take decision or action.

Forces are everywhere. Every life and activity is the interplay of various forces. Our thoughts are also forces which get generate thousands in number, mostly unconscious and some conscious one. These thoughts are the forces when get triggered in any of the four components (Budhi, Manas, Ahmankara, Organs, in short, I will call them AB OM) and based on our minds nature and capability of amplification, the thoughts get’s amplified to some form of intensity or it might get discarded. All this amplification and massaging of our thoughts happen in sub-conscious mind, the input to it comes from ABOM components of the mind. So how strong one's attachment is, feelings are or quality of decisions happened, the thoughts frequency and intensity or magnitude will get decided. For example, if a person is a diabetic, so when one by-pass some diabetic clinic, thought got triggered that tomorrow I might get admitted to  hospital, how my family will cope up with that, my finance will get disturbed, who will support me, my sister can help me, but her husband is not good, I told my dad not to marry her to that stupid guy, these government employees are useless, in fact this BJP government does not make sense, I just hate the demonetization, so I should better migrate to the USA and so on. So the chain of thoughts keeps on moving unconsciously while one is driving and it starts impacting our thought process, health, and behavior without we being aware of. Had the person not a diabetic, these chain of thoughts could have been avoided or could have taken different direction. So, how these four components get shaped?

Our experience and surrounding keep on adding the threads and impressions on these major four component of mind. How we have been raised as a child, our primary teachers, our friends, what kind of comfort or troubles we faced during childhood, teen and at a young age, our spouse, job, our daily habits, eating patterns, exposure to media and so on. So by default, these impressions keep on adding to ABOM and we keep on reacting to their nature. So if we desired in childhood that Maruti 800 was my dream car, we feel extremely proud of owning Audi or Hyundai and get attached to the car. Our job or business has given us the car, so we work hard, play politics to protect it and so on, the threads keep on adding. We keep on going thru the cycle of happiness, sadness, frustration, joy, ecstasy, thrill, grief, regrets, and trouble and so on. When the proportion is ok, we survive, however, most of the people get trapped in mental problems, irritating behavior, short temper, unhelpful attitude, health problems, unable to cope with family challenges and so on.

And that’s when the spirituality starts creeping into our life. When ever we pass thru some temple or holy place, we bow our head, we fold our hand and says that “Almight, nothing is in my hand, you are there to take care of me, mine is nothing, everything is yours” and that’s when the peace and blissfulness starts becoming part of one’s life.

May God Bless!